Rejecting a lottery management privatization contract. Reaching an agreement with the Hershey Trust. Charging officials with public corruption. Making 600 narcotics arrests. Doubling the arrests of child predators made in five months than were made all last year.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane touts her record from her first 158 days in office.PennLive file photo

And that is only a sampling of the highlights achieved since taking office on Jan. 15 that Attorney General Kathleen Kane shared with the crowd attending Monday's Pennsylvania Press Club luncheon.

Pausing at one point in her self-promoting speech that started with a stand-up routine poking fun at state issues, Kane said, “I can’t believe it’s only been 158 days in office. I feel like I’ve already been there for four years all of the issues we’ve had facing us.”

But she also used the platform to make a pitch for more money for her office at a time lawmakers and Gov. Tom Corbett are putting the final touches on a 2013-14 state budget.

Without more money, she said her office faces having to lay off 57 employees in an office that is already down 111 positions since 2008.What’s more, she said, the office will have to begin to outsource a substantial number of its cases to attorneys outside the Attorney General’s Office, which will be more expensive and include an element of risk.

“All we need to do is look at the national report of the federal government outsourcing essential intelligence functions to see we need to keep these critical jobs and functions in-house,” Kane said.

House Republican spokesman Steve Miskin said the budget is still a work in progress and aware of what Kane claims will be the ramifications if her office gets no more money.

"Everyone is looking at the various lines and trying to make revisions where possible," Miskin said. "The door for the attorney general's office is not shut."

The following are some of the other issues Kane touched on during her press club remarks:

On voter ID: Kane said her goal is to uphold the constitution but her job requires her to defend state agencies. So at this point, she plans to have a lawyer from her office in the courtroom at a hearing next month on a court challenge that attempts to prevent the law from ever being enforced.

But Kane also reserved the right to change her mind about defending that law.

“If I feel I can’t possibly represent my client, I also have an ethical responsibility to make sure they have someone who does,” Kane said.”I’m not saying that that’s going to happen. I’m saying we’re all looking for the same goal right now.”

“Eventually the chief of our contract division came to me and said, ‘General, you have two choices: you can go along to get along and rubber stamp it or you can uphold the constitution. And I said, ‘Bob, the constitution wins every single time.’ And he said, “I’m glad to hear you say that.’

“My decision was very simple. It was according to the law. It wasn’t a policy decision. It was strictly the law and we’re proud of the job that we did.”

The Corbett administration, however, maintains her decision was wrong. It since has been working on rewriting the contract to try to address Kane’s reasons for rejecting the contract with Camelot Global Services that would have handed it the day-to-day operation of the lottery for the next 20 to 30 years.

Before she became attorney general, the office was investigating allegations that the trust bought a golf course at an inflated value to benefit one of its own, sunk $70 million into the course for their own benefit, allow compensation for trustees to rise above their level of service and that trustees' family members benefited through business dealing with the school.

Kane’s investigation found no criminal wrongdoing, but did pen an agreement that requires the trust to make a number of reforms ranging from lowering trustees’ compensation and addressing overlap of trustees sitting on the Hershey Co. and Hershey Entertainment & Resorts. Boards to the frequency of attorney general’s office’s reviews.

“Our reforms have really done a lot to make that school better going forward, to increase the population of the school and better able to serve more children,” she said. “We found we had to make certain reforms and they were welcomed by Hershey and the agreement was signed.”

On closing the Florida loophole: Kane said loose reciprocity agreements that Pennsylvania had with other states allowed Pennsylvanians who couldn’t get a permit to carry a concealed weapon to go to another state and get one and bring it back to Pennsylvania.

“There were about 4,000 guns on the street that perhaps shouldn’t have been. We closed that loophole,” Kane said.

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